Where Were You?
by Liz Rosenberg
1 I was planting bulbs, my hands deep in the earth,
2 futurity's flower on my mind
3 when a girl raced at me with the news.
4 We walked over a little bridge,
5 I saw black asphalt underneath;
6 knew you were still close that instant, but afterward
7 forever would be pulling further from me, like a train.
8 But I kept walking forward, did not turn or leap
9 over the side, and came into the office
10 with its green plants sucking air.
11 All that darkening fall and winter
12 I kept coming along the straight path steadily
13 drawing forward, though sometimes my hair would fire up
14 from the back of my neck, and once at midnight
15 I heard your voice, light,
16 slightly exasperated, mocking us: Look what I do
17 for them, and they don't notice, don't look up ...
18 By spring I was a long way down
19 where nothing could reach me, no signals flaring,
20 no codes of violet in the air.
21 When I reached into the still-cold dirt
22 the bulbs were white and clouded, they had rotted through.
23 Oh, nothing has blossomed of all that I planted,
24 and you, still nowhere to be found!
[from Children of Paradise (1994): University of Pittsburgh Press]
Copyright © 1986, Liz Rosenberg.
Reproduced for personal use only: do not circulate.